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Category: Pronouns

One common mistake that I hear people make very often is they’re vs their. When you are learning English as a second language it is difficult to understand things that sound the same, but do not mean the same thing. This is one of those cases where people have a hard time understanding the difference between these two pronouns.

Let’s focus on their first.

Their (possessive pronoun)

This is a possessive pronoun, which means you would use this to show that somebody owns something.

Example:

Who owns this house? It is their house.

Because it sounds like they are, people often confuse them. However, if you break it down they become easy-to-understand.

People often omits the noun after “their”.

Example:

It is the theirs.

This means that “it is their house.”

They are a.k.a. they’re (subject pronoun)

They is a subject pronoun. This means that it would replace people, for example.

Example:

They go to the mall.

People go to the mall.

When you don’t contract “they” and “are,” it is easy to understand. When people contract “they” and “are,” the confusion starts.

Example:

They’re from Hawaii.

This is a particular subtlety that you will have to pay attention to, so you need to focus on what the person is saying. Also, by paying attention to the context used you will be able to understand whether the person means they are or their.

In Quebec French it is considered acceptable to say, “moi je.” Quebecois use this spoken expression to emphasize something. In English it is not acceptable to say, “me I.” It doesn’t work because you are using a subject and an object pronoun both as subjects.

A sentence usually has a subject and an object pronoun.

e.g. I like her.

I > is a subject pronoun

Her > is an object pronoun

Her could be replaced by a name, so the sentence could be, ” I like Jenn.”